


Scar Tissue

by Nonsuch



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Be afraid for everyone, F/M, M/M, Obsessive Behavior, One-Sided Attraction, POV First Person, So much unrequited love, Unrequited Love, from all sides, standalone for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 06:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7966249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonsuch/pseuds/Nonsuch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She motivates his every instruction and demand, her presence in his mind implicit even when unspoken. To recognise the grip she has on him is to recognise precisely how weak he has become. There can be no quantification of this, no prediction of his movements. I hardly know whether the right label for it is madness or love.</p><p>The only thing I can be sure of is that she has him truly snared. But the great irony – of course – is that I don’t think she even meant to set a trap. Ignorant indeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scar Tissue

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Шрам](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10407360) by [Astronautka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astronautka/pseuds/Astronautka)



Once we enter light-speed to rendezvous with _The Finalizer_ and I have time to contemplate his exposed face, I determine – with not inconsiderable admiration – that the girl is an artful butcher. The cut is deep, but elegant – it has missed his eyes, cutting instead across his cheek and the bridge of his nose. It is the kind of cut I know he would have chosen for himself.

He was coughing flecks of blood onto the snow when we found him – a dark, bloody heap twitching upon the ground – but was still alert enough to glare at me. Shame pulsed from his body as he realised that I was watching him, and he managed something of a gurgling snarl when I smiled. Even as the very foundations of my dream – the cradle of my new Empire – trembled apart beneath my boots, I could still derive petty satisfaction from Ren’s humiliation.

I am impatient for the sedative the med-droid used to wear off. I crave the hatred I know will flash in his eyes as I stroke my knuckles across his cheeks, the way his eyes will water from the sting as I trace the healing solution across the cut. I allow my hand to move to the exposed flesh of his shoulder where the cloth has been ripped away, tracing the rigid contour of his bicep.

He has long since guarded his body with all the rigour of a zealot, maintaining himself in perfect sanctity – it is a rare privilege to enter the temple of Kylo Ren. My fingers have started to peel back the singed fabric, moving past the neatly-applied bandage to reveal more of his secret, forbidden flesh, when he begins to stir. I release him immediately, withdrawing to the corner of the room, turning my head to gaze idly out of the observation window.

“Where is she?” he grinds the words out, the final one – _she_ – leaving him as more of a gasp. I look over, watching as he struggles to raise his head to look at me, wincing with every motion.

“I would imagine back with her traitor friends in the Resistance, if they weren’t incinerated. She seems much too tenacious to die easily.”

He emits a sound somewhere between a whine and a sob, tightening his fist. The rivets and bolts holding the room together strain to hold the walls fast as they creak and buckle. An alarm blares as the pressure drops, and the room groans. If I hadn’t already been thoroughly deadened to shock, I might panic. Instead, I approach him and deliver a neat slap to his face. He screams in pain, the wound on his cheek throbbing and bleeding afresh. The alarm cuts out, and the walls settle as he whimpers.

“You’re disgusting, Ren. You doom us all with your pursuit of this girl, only to try and kill the handful of us who managed us to escape. And for what? Because you _miss her_?” I straighten myself out, allowing amusement to twist the corner of my lip. “Pathetic.” I find the bacta solution and swabs that were left at my request, returning to his bedside. I tip the bottle carefully, dampening the cotton with the solution.

He looks steadfastly at the wall as I prepare, hiding his face from me. Leaning over his cot, I clasp his chin and turn it, moving too quickly and decisively to allow him time to struggle. His soft, brown eyes are fixed on me, and I take a moment to appreciate how appealing they are, even when betrayed – they are eyes that beg for indulgence, and are used to receiving it. Princely eyes. “I have never trusted droids for the delicate work, so I had them leave your face to me.” He looks at me, at my pleasure upon regarding his bare face. A shudder passes over him as I brush a few blood-dampened locks from his face, speaking more softly now. “If you’re good, Ren, I might even be gentle.”

I move the swab to the cut where the blood has begun to flow again. In response he closes his eyes and becomes still, his control returning. For the rest of the journey, he gives me no more window into his soul than the jerky quality of his breaths and the occasional spasms of his body as I press the swab too deep.

*

*

*

I see nothing of Ren in the aftermath. He is delivered to the medical bay upon our arrival, and from there shuttled – alone – to meet with the Supreme Leader. Despite having delivered him, as I was commanded to, I am not summoned – the Supreme Leader evidently feels the best punishment for me is to be shunned and left to my disgrace. With no explicit directive, I am left to rally the ruins of the First Order and preserve the shadowy contracts and treaties that sustain us.

Even with our diminished resources, we remain a credible power. Our infantry still number in the millions, and our shadowy outposts remain scattered across the galaxy. As helpless as watching Starkiller crumble made me feel, I can draw some comfort from the knowledge that the Republic has fared far worse.

Intelligence on the Resistance continues to trickle in, a mix of reports, data drops, and images. I take account of every new detail, even the most trivial. Plans as complex as mine fail or succeed on the basis of their smallest components – it does not do to neglect the detail.

I register each new piece of intelligence systematically, taking account of numbers and resources more than names and rumours. I have always enjoyed the clinical cleanness of numbers – they make the best raw material for strategy.

I make an exception to this for a holo disc that contains no information of practical use – it holds no location, no contact information, no vital statistics. Indeed, I only note it because I glimpse her face on a monitor.  

I saw her face but once before, when she was carried onto Starkiller in Ren’s arms. At the time I was struck by her smallness, by how easily he held her. Everyone who dared to look stared at him – the monster with the maiden in his arms – but only I knew that there was a young man with fine, curling hair and finer lips beneath the mask. Only I recognised how jealously he guarded her, how he tilted her towards his chest to hide her from the onlookers. Only I knew how starved he was of contact, of touch – how the sole foreign presence allowed in his chambers was the charred skull of his grandfather. Only I knew that the monster Kylo Ren was capable of tenderness, of sobs and soft touches.

I can’t help but compare the small, pale form I saw cradled in his arms with the bold and open face now staring out at me from the portrait, evidently captured as a holo for identification purposes – bureaucratic systems have a way of persisting even in the most strained circumstances. She smiles uncertainly, her savage eyes – tamed for now – wary. If not for the striking symmetry of her slowly revolving features, it might have been difficult to reconcile the vibrant portrait projected by the device with the sleeping captive I saw before. She looks faintly confounded by the camera – I doubt they even had holo technology in the scrapheap where she grew up. Her ignorance is plain. I can only suppose that’s part of the appeal.

I slip the holo disc into my pocket and order the technician who had her likeness on his monitor to wipe the record of its retrieval. Within an hour, I have arranged for the same technician’s evening ration to be poisoned. I do hate messy loose ends.

*

*

*

When I next see Ren, I am in the chamber of the Supreme Leader. The air is thick with dust, and is pungent with the smell of his perpetually decaying flesh. I kneel before his throne, staring at my boots. This is only the third time I have truly been in his presence, but I am too unimpressed by him – his shrivelled body sagging low into his seat – to be truly afraid. “General, you may rise.” I straighten at his command. I can sense Ren, newly arrived, at my side. His training has clearly improved his capacity for subtlety.   

“Supreme Leader, I wish to–”

“I do not care to hear your excuses. My sole concern lies with rebuilding the might of the First Order. I trust you have already begun?”

“Yes, Supreme Leader. Our alliances are stronger than they ever were thanks to the destruction of the Republic. The entire galaxy fears us. New allies join us by the day.”

“And the Resistance?”

“We continue to receive intelligence on their movements. They have found Skywalker. We await further information on his whereabouts.”

“You must do more than await this information, General. You must seek it.”

I bow my head. “I will ensure all of our available resources are applied to the task.”

“Good. This is your last chance. If you fail me again, you will die.” There is no hint of regret, or even resignation. His tone is drier than his flaking skin. My discomfort does not pass unnoticed. “Don’t look so affronted, General. No one is irreplaceable.”

I stare up at him, bold and undefeated. “There will be no need for a replacement. All will be as you bid it.”

“We will see. Won’t we, Kylo Ren?”

I snatch a glance at Ren, who nods in silent acknowledgement of the Supreme Leader’s words. A gleaming new mask covers his face, and the scar I know to be writ upon it. I envy him for it more than I ever have before.

*

*

*

That evening, I invite Ren to my private shuttle. I offer no enticement, trusting him to know that I do not engage in empty pleasantries.

He arrives ten minutes late, mask on and hand at his hilt. “What do you want?”

“Your training clearly hasn’t improved your manners. You’ll find out in due course. I may not be frivolous, but I still know how to entertain. Sit.”

I gesture to a table laden with food and drink, the colours bursting from the plates forming a strange contrast with the austere decoration of what normally functions as a meeting room. I have ensured – via liaison with my personal chef droid, as adept at crafting banquets as it is at concocting poisons – that his favourite dishes are present. It took considerable mental effort to remember his favourites, to recollect those distant days I spent as nursemaid to a shell-shocked Ben Solo, still wearing his blood-stained Jedi robes, little more than a boy and hardly credible as a murderer.

Ren sits, but makes no move to remove his mask or make conversation. He holds his head stiffly, with something like contempt, as I pick up my knife and fork to start my meal, cutting through the meat as he watches me.

“I was going to save it for dessert, but since it might make you more tractable I want to make it clear that I have a gift for you.”

“You have _nothing_ I could want.”

“Precedent alone should tell you that is untrue, Ren.” I take a bite, watching him carefully as I chew.

“Then tell me what you have.”

“A holo of the girl, and potentially more – if you can be patient.”

“Give it to me.” The modulator of his mask strips his voice of its emotion, but his body betrays his excitement – he leans forward in his seat, newly eager.

I shake my head, taking another bite. “What happened to patience? Your mother would be ashamed of your manners.”

He knows better than to rise to it, but his new rigidity betrays his anger. He always seizes up when he’s enraged, the stillness forecasting the inevitable outburst. Before the anger can boil over into violence, I speak again. “The holo is yours if you will only grant me one request.”

“Say it, then.”

“Remove your mask. I want to see how you’ve healed.”

Everything I need to know about his feelings for the girl is betrayed by his lack of hesitation. He reaches for the mechanism and pulls the mask free, placing it on the table. His scar has healed well, a pale pink path – as thick as my fore-finger – crossing his face. I am busy admiring my skill, noting how pleasingly his tousled hair frames his freshly marked features, when he speaks. “Give it to me.”

I reach for the pouch clipped to my belt, withdrawing the holo disc and passing it to him. He grabs it from me jealously, turning in his seat and hunching over as he activates the projection. Her face manifests before him, visibly jolting him. The blue-tinted image casts an eerie glow across his face as he swallows. His eyes moisten as he watches her, observing the creases of her brow, her unsteady smile and wary eyes – ten seconds of her life crystallised in his hand. I count the months that have passed in my mind as I watch him, determining that it has been seven months since he last saw her. To look at him is to know the ache of every day.

And it is also to know that Kylo Ren is in my power once again.

*

*

*

We plan together, and it is almost like old times. We re-establish the old encrypted line between us as we plot. I only regret that there are no touches now – he will not so much as suffer hand contact. The savage has drained him of all that we once shared. I determine to punish her for that, when the time comes.

Our past makes it comparatively easy to deceive those who might otherwise suspect us of some disloyalty, and I can even take some delight from the resurrection of the gossip about us – the more astute officers naturally have visions of us fucking after every passionate spat. I see it in their glances, and hear it when I drift to sleep listening to covert recordings of my subordinates’ chatter.

Another advantage of Starkiller’s destruction is the obliteration of the few remnants of the old hierarchy. Snoke is still known as a name, but had might as well be a story told to intimidate children – I know of no one living, besides us, who has seen him with their own eyes. Only Ren and I know precisely how frail he is, sitting upon a cold, stone throne, protected by little beside his rich, velvet nightgown.

But Ren insists on having the girl first – he will not strike until she is at his side. His obsession deepens by the day. On one night I enter his room to find him kneeling before her image, something of a bore now that I have seen it a hundred times, his hands clutching each other as if engaged in some fervent prayer. Sensing me, he turns to reveal the vivid yellow eyes of a fanatic, snarling a command to leave.

Later, when I tell him we have intercepted a coded communique indicating the system where Skywalker and the girl are hiding, he merely shrugs and turns away. “I know exactly where she is. I am preparing. I need somewhere to take her. Somewhere safe.”

I nod, aware that I am to understand that ‘safe’ means ‘somewhere beyond Snoke’s control’. I appreciate now that it is the girl who has made a traitor of him, not me. She motivates his every instruction and demand, her presence in his mind implicit even when unspoken. To recognise the grip she has on him is to recognise precisely how weak he has become. There can be no quantification of this, no prediction of his movements. I hardly know whether the right label for it is madness or love.

The only thing I can be sure of is that she has him truly snared. But the great irony – of course – is that I don’t think she even meant to set a trap. Ignorant indeed.

*

*

*

It is a month later when he brings the girl back. They are both still sopping wet and blood is leaking down her leg, leaving a trail upon the scrupulously polished floor of my ancestral home’s landing bay. The bandage applied to her wound is sloppy and loose, already sagging with blood. He wears his helmet slightly crooked, and I know he is panicking from how he looks around the hanger, visibly disorientated. He calls out for a medic, his modulated voice strangely plaintive as it reverberates around the space.

He hasn’t noticed me on the landing platform, walking straight past. I am invisible to him now that he holds her again, beneath even contempt, but I expected as much. I tap a request for support onto my comm device and step forward.

“Let me help her,” I say, speaking calmly. I remember this kind of panic from the first time we met aboard _The Eliminator_ , seven years before – though he held no one in his arms then, his hands were still stained with their blood. He had had no mask then, and bore no name except the one given to him by his parents. But his fear had been similarly pitched, his whole body trembling from the power of it.

He stops without turning, arms tensing as he holds her more tightly. “No.”

“Would you let her die because of your pride? You know I can help her, Ren. I have medical training – you yourself have benefited from it.”

“She needs a proper medic. I told you she was injured. Where is the help you promised? I shouldn’t need to tell you that _I will destroy you_ if she dies.”

I maintain my calm, regular tone, stubborn with my patience, as if speaking to a child. “The medical team is coming, but she needs to reach the med-bay with blood still in her body. I have seen to it that they are on their way. Now put her down, and tear a strip of cloth from your scarf. Hurry.”

Reluctantly, he sets her down on the floor, and I take a brief moment to look at her as he tears strips of fabric from his scarf. Her face is pale and she looks exhausted. She is small, suffering and would be pitied by a better man. Instead, I can’t help but imagine, with a perverse thrill, the terror she experienced – the shock of Ren’s arrival, the hopeless stand against him, the scream of terror as he lunged. But I cannot dwell – I know that my survival depends on hers. I tug the useless red bandage from her leg, taking a steadying breath and removing the canteen of Corellian whiskey attached to my belt. I splash some upon the wound as an antiseptic, taking the first strip of fabric Ren passes to me and clearing the worst of the blood massed around the gash. I take the second strip and wrap it viciously tight to stem the flow, lifting her leg slightly to tie it neatly at the back. Ren hovers over us both as I work, still vast even as he kneels low at her side, his bloodied hands – gloveless, I notice –trembling from his own impotence as he looks on.

The fragile moment passes as soon as the medical crew – they were positioned close to the landing bay, but not so close as to deny me some time alone with Ren and Rey – arrive with a stretcher. Ren immediately seizes her, lifting her up and placing her onto the stretcher. They all run with her, gone as swiftly as they arrived. I remain kneeling on the spot, a small pool of blood and spilt alcohol besides me, and I finally allow myself to fully imagine what has passed between them.

_I picture them duelling amidst a downpour, imagining the violence and fury of him as he deals his practised blows, his fresh strength a shock to her. I see her stumbling on the muddy ground, then screaming – dropping her sword – as he strikes low, his red blade sizzling too long against her flesh. I see her collapsing onto the grass, panting from the pain as he retracts his blade, sinking slowly onto the damp ground besides her. There is no gloating now she is defeated, only tenderness and comfort as he extends a trembling hand to her cheek, watching her as she gazes back at him in terror._

_But he doesn’t see the fear – only the face of his beloved. Finally, after so long, too long, she is his again. His to hold, his to cherish, his to protect. I can hear him plotting their vows in his mind – anything to bind them, anything to keep them together – as he looks at her sweet, soft face. But the joy of holding her dims as the light fades and her eyes start to flicker to a close, and he realises that the grass is damp with blood as well as rain–_

“Should I clean this mess up, sir?” a mechanical voice disturbs me. I don’t look at the speaker – a service droid. It is enough to see their mop, and as I collect myself I realise that I was the one who issued the summons for them. It would never do to leave the floor bloody.

I nod sharply, standing and straightening myself before withdrawing to my quarters. The months that Kylo has spent preparing for the arrival of the girl have allowed time for certain improvements to be made to my father’s already rather extensive – albeit old-fashioned and incomplete – surveillance system. The evening passes in quiet contemplation of silent footage of Ren at the girl’s bedside – him holding her little hand, brushing hair back from her brow, simply taking in the sight of her.

And though I watched him – _enjoyed_ watching him – bleeding out on the snow of Starkiller, I know I have never seen him more helpless than he is now.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a fabulously sinister little comic strip cheesytriangle posted to Tumblr (you can find it here - http://cheesytriangle.tumblr.com/post/149709362857/for-the-first-time-i-felt-pity-for-the-enemy), which basically presented Kylo's obsession with Rey through Hux's eyes. I take that central idea without really following the tone of it, also using some ideas such as the holo of Rey and Hux's general distaste at the tawdriness of it all.
> 
> (n.b. Please excuse the inevitably flawed descriptions of injury/first aid. Just know that I at least tried to make them faintly realistic.)
> 
> This may be continued at some point - if it is, subsequent chapters will be from Rey and Kylo's perspectives. If you want more, do let me know in the comments!


End file.
